THE ONLY thing missing for owner-breeder Bernie Sullivan at Dubbo racecourse yesterday was a cake.
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Celebrating his birthday, Sullivan was on course to watch his filly Alley Miss take out the $20,000 Kings Hall Jewellers Silver Goblet (1120m).
Trained at Cessnock by Todd Howlett, Alley Miss ($5.00, Leanne Henry) franked a strong recent run in midweek company at Gosford by leading all the way to take out the feature two-year-old event.
Prior to that run at Gosford, when fifth behind the promising Soapbox, the filly had won on debut at Muswellbrook in February before finishing fourth behind Gold Bender in the Wellington Boot in March.
Sullivan has only the one broodmare, Rochetta, and Alley Miss (by former speedster Murphy’s Blu Boy) is the first horse he had bred.
“It’s a fair birthday present, that’s for sure,” Sullivan said after the race.
“She’s always showed us a bit of ability but she does things wrong at times.
“We’ve got her half-sister being broken in at the moment and hopefully she can be as good as this filly.”
After jumping well from gate three and leading to the turn Alley Miss beat off local hope The Brown One ($21.00, Justin Stanley) at the top of the Dubbo straight and despite getting weary had enough of a break to hold off the fast-finishing Slate On Edge ($41.00, Hannah Martin) by a head.
Red Caviar ($26.00, Michael Travers) was a further long neck away in third place with Classical Melody ($8.00, Greg Ryan) fourth and race favourite Cordelia ($2.80 fav, Grant Buckley) fifth.
After the race Henry admitted to getting nervous in the final 50m as the field charged at her.
“I wasn’t sure if she had held on to tell you the truth but I’m glad she did,” said Henry, who won the Goblet aboard the Mack Griffith-trained Sutton Manor back in 2008.
“She did a good job because she was only second up from a spell and she did go at a pretty quick tempo so it was a good win.”
Howlett said he had targeted the race with Alley Miss when he brought the filly back from a spell.
“You don’t get many of these good money races for two-year-olds right at the end of the season so we thought we’d run her first up at Gosford and then come here,” he said.
“She missed the kick and got back at Gosford where her pattern has always been to race up forward so we were happy with her run there and I was confident she would be hard to beat today.”